Sunday, November 23, 2014

the light

I have grown to love this poem. I wrote this originally in response to a prompt. It was about my life in a squatter colony when I was a child, where the home has no electricity or running water.

The "light" in the poem could refer to the physical light itself, and, as I realised later, it could be a metaphor for the values that our parents taught us, without which, my path could have been vastly different.

photo by xandertimage from morguefile.com

the light

you know,
the light from the single
pressure lamp in our hut
keeps the night at bay
keeps the barking dogs outside
the night

there is no tv, no radio
to distract my school work
except the light will dim
after a while
and dad will pump the lamp every hour
or so

to keep the kerosene flowing
feeding the flames,
and mum joins me at
the only table
mending a dress with what squares of fabric
she has

while dad reads the day's papers
crumpled and smudged
from passing through
many hands
while outside in the village the dogs
still bark.

16 Comments:

What a wonderful story this tells. I could smell the kerosene. I could see how you could work on your books, and I love how a newspaper passed through many hands.. somehow we have lost a lot when we live in relative abundance.

it's true, we have lost a lot when we live in relative abundance. things are taken for granted. of course now we expect electric power and clean water to be basics. no government can survive without that. :)

Sherry,

oh yes, i am grateful for them :)

Sumana,

warmth, ah yes! :)

Scott,

thank you! :)

Mary,

that was some tough environment. :)

GL,

thank you! glad it did. :)

totomai,

:)

sometimes the street lights do experience brown-outs, and the place is really dark. our home has no electricity, but some do and those were illegally tapped.

thank you. they were trying to raise a family as best as they could. :)

TALON,

thanks! glad that it brought back some fine memories. :)

Kathryn,

thanks! when i started on the poem, i see it just as what a physical light can do, but i think subconsciously i was also writing about the values my parents taught us.

Justin,

thank you! :)

rallentanda,

i do agree with your statement. the time and place i was writing about in the poem was then still under British colonial rule and on transition to self-governance. though there was no running water in the house, there was a communal water supply in the village by the authorities, and we have our clean water for free. we can actually live without electricity then. we use firewood for cooking, coals for irons, and the said pressure lamps for light. :)